Chapter 4 Summary

Empires are states that posses authoritarian powers which are typically large and very hostile. The strategy of the empire is to conquer other states and exploit their resources. Empires also include a large population which encompasses many different cultures who are governed under a single political system. Empires and multiethnic states do not have a strong defining difference between the two systems. They can, however, have a common culture and not have a unified political system.
The first empires were located in Mesopotamia. They were the Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian empires. Egypt became a temporary state when it ruled Nubia and the lands of eastern Mediterranean
Persia, Greece under Alexander the Great, Rome, China during Qin and Han dynasties, India during the Mauryan and Gupta dynasties are all Eurasian empires of the classical era. They all had shared the same difficulties:

1. Would they pose the same culture of the imperial heartland to the people of the empire
2. How would they rule the government? Directly or indirectly through states.
3. How would they collect taxes, tribute and labor while maintaining order?
4. Even though they were once powerful, they all eventually collapsed.

The imperial states stimulated the exchange of ideas, cultures and values because people were brought together with different traditions.

In 500 B.C.E. the Persian Empire was the most impressive. Their empire was located on the Iranian plateau just north of the Persian Gulf. They had an imperial system that was constructed from the Babylonian and Assyrian empires but surpassed them in size and splendor.

Rulers: Cyrus 557-530 B.C.E Darius 522—486

The Persian Empire conquered an area from Egypt to India and formed a single state with 35 million people. The Persian Empire upheld the traditions and cultures of all religions. They had a system of standardized coinage, predictable taxes and a canal linking the Nile with the Red Sea.

The Greeks drew on the legacy of the First Civilizations around 750 B.C.E. which flourished for about 400 years before it was incorporated into other empires. The population of the Greece and Aegean basin was just 2-3 million people. The landscape of Greece was located on a peninsula divided by steep mountains and valleys. Greece had many city-state, small settlements which were independent and at times conflicted with each other. They put away their differences every four years and held the Olympic Games which began in 776 B.C.E.

Between 750 and 500 B.C.E. they settled all along the Mediterranean basin and the rim of the Black Sea. The citizens of the Greek culture were able to participate in affairs of state.

Council of Elders—28 men over 60 years of age from the wealthier and influential of society. They provided political leadership to Sparta.
Solon was a leader who reformed the Greek people and from preventing civil war due to conflict between the classes. Solon reformed by the following:
1. Created a more democratic form of governing.

2. Dept slavery was abolished.

3. Created the ability for more men to hold public office

4. All citizens were allowed to take part in assembly.

450 B.C.E. the reformers of Cleisthenes and Pericles gave all holders of public office were to be paid and the Assembly became the center of their political life.

Women, slaves and foreigners were not allowed to participate.

Some of the Ionia who lived along the seacoast became under control of the Persian Empire. In 499 B.C.E. some of the Ionian Greek cities revolted from the Persian Empire and Athens supported them. To punish the Greeks, the Persian Empire launched military expeditions in 490 and 480 B.C.E. On land and sea, the Greeks were able to hold off the mighty Persian Empire -- Battle of Marathon in 490 B.C.E. Freedom had encouraged the Greek military to fight with extraordinary bravery. Persia now represents Asia and despotism and Greece signified Europe and freedom.
The Greeks’ victory uplifted their society and the poor people were celebrated because they had fought against the Persian army. The following was also created:

1. The beginning of the Golden Age of Greek culture

2. The Parthenon was built – Greek goddess Athena

3. Greek theatre with the works of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides.

4. Socrates – philosopher

Greece experienced a civil war 431-404 B.C.E.- Peloponnesian War- due to the resentment by the Athenian efforts to solidify their dominant position amongst its allies. Sparta led the resistance to the Athenian imperialism and Athens defeated. The city-states were fatigued and they did not trust each other which allowed the takeover by Macedonia.

In 338 B.C.E. the Macedonian conquest of Greece by Phillip II allowed political unification of Greece. Alexander, Philip’s son, prepared to lead their military offenses against Persia. This offensive helped unify the Greeks because they wanted to defeat the Persians because of their last two assaults against them.

In the expedition 333-323 B.C.E. Alexander lead the expedition and it became one of the military feats of the classical world. This created a Greek Empire from Egypt and Anatolia in the west to Afghanistan and India in the east.

Hellenistic era 323 – 330 B.C.E. – dissemination of Greek culture.

Alexandria, Egypt was the largest city with ½ million people with a large cosmopolitan center where Egyptians, Greeks, Jews, Babylonians, Syrians, Persians, and other cultures were together.

1. 1,200 ships created long distance commerce

2. Library with 700,000 volumes

3. Museum with sponsored scholars and writers

Roman Empire and Chinese city-states 200 B.C.E. to 200 C.E. were similar and had the same size population 50-60 million. They did not have contact with one another.

Rome encompassed Mediterranean basin, parts of Europe, Britain, North Africa and Middle East.

In 509 B.C.E. Roman aristocrats expelled the monarchy and established a republic where the wealthy class, patricians, dominated the empire. The Senate was developed which was a patrician assembly. The poorer class, plebeians, had conflicts with the wealthy class. A written code of law offered the plebeians the opportunity to shape public policy and an office of tribune which would block unfavorable legislation.

“The Way of the Ancestors” -- rule of law, the rights of citizens, the absence of pretension, upright moral behavior, keeping one’s world.

The Roman building system -- took over 500 years – Began 490s B.C.E. the Romans controlled Latin civilizations in central Italy and spread to most of the Italian peninsula. Punic Wars with Carthage, the Roman Empire extended its boundaries into North Africa and the empire was not a naval power. The empires of Greece, Egypt and Mesopotamia under Roman domination and then expanded into Southern and Western Europe.

Rome experienced a civil war during the first century B.C.E. from the rivalries of the poor who were trained as soldiers against the wealthy. After the civil war, an emperor was selected; Caesar Augustus 27 B.C.E. to 14 C.E Roman was becoming an empire. Many felt Rome was abandoning it republican origins so Augustus tried to maintain the Senate, consuls, public assemblies and referred to himself as first man and not king or emperor.

Pax Romana, the Roman peace, is the era of imperial Rome’s greatest extend and greatest authority during the first two centuries C.E.

The Chinese state originated in 2200 B.C.E under Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties but by 500 B.C.E. this Chinese state had fallen apart. The seven kingdoms were competing against one another.

Shihuangdi from the state of Qin, brilliantly unified China.

The State of Qin possessed the following:
1. Effective bureaucracy

2. Subordinated its aristocracy

3. Had equipped its army with iron weapons,

4. Had rapidly rising agricultural output and growing population.

5. Had a political philosophy called Legalism (clear rules and harsh punishments)

Shihuangdi (221-210 B.C.E.) launched a military campaign to reunify China and in 10 years defeated the other states.

Scholars who opposed his policies were executed and their books burned along with aristocrats who also opposed were physically moved to the capital. Laborers were recruited to build the Great Wall of China to keep out northern barbarians and to erect a monumental mausoleum as the emperor’s final resting place.

Shihuangdi imposed the following:

1. Uniform system of weights, measures

2. Currency

3. Standardized the length of axles for carts

4. Written form of the Chinese language

Qin Dynasty collapsed in 206 B.C.E. The Han Dynasty followed (206 B.C.E. to 220 B.C.E.) The Han Dynasty had a less marsh approach

The similarities of the Roman Empire and Chinese Empire

1. They both felt that they were universal or governed most of the world.

2. They both invested in public works.

3. They both claimed supernational approvals.

a. The Romans believed that their deceased Roman emperors were gods.

b. The Romans persecuted the Christians for not participating in their cult

c. The Chinese emperor was called Son of Heaven

d. The Chinese governed with a mandate from Heaven

e. If tragedy occurred, it was believed that the emperor governed poorly and it was a punishment.

F. The Chinese emperor was to perform rituals to strengthen the relationship between heaven and earth.

G. Confucius and his followers wrote the moral government that was to be followed.

The Chinese Empire and Roman Empire both absorbed a foreign religious tradition.

1. Christianity developed in the Roman Empire and became the dominant religion of Europe and Buddhism came from India and developed in China. Buddhism was introduced by Asian traders and received little support from the Han Dynasty. Sui dynasty emperor Wendi 581-604 C.E. reunited China and Buddhism became popular.

Differences:

1. Roman’s beginnings were small as a city-state which meant that Italians/Romans were a minority in the empire.

2. The Chinese Empire grew from a much larger area which was already ethnicity Chinese.

3. When the Chinese spread south, they assimilated non-Chinese or barbarian people.
In 212 C.E. Roman citizenship was given on almost all free people of the empire. The advantages of being a citizen were: right to hold public office, to serve in the Roman military units (legions), to wear a toga and it conveyed a legal status.

Latin, an alphabetic language depicting sounds, gave rise to the following languages: Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and Romanian whereas Chinese did not. Chinese characters which represent worlds or ideas were not easily transferred to other languages. Chinese could be understood by all literate people so cultural identities could not be maintained as in Roman Empire.

The Han emperor Wudi established an imperial academy with the writings of Confucius to train officials for their immerging bureaucracy. This was the beginning of the civil service system with examinations and selection by merit.

Romans developed an elaborate body of law which was applied equally dealing with matters of justice, property, commerce and family life.

What made for good government? For those who inherited the Roman tradition, it was good laws and for those who inherited the Chinese tradition, it was good men.

End of the Han dynasty empire – 220 C.E.

End of the Roman Empire is 476 C.E. Only the western half of the empire collapsed while the eastern part, known as the Byzantine Empire, continued with the tradition of imperial Rome for 1,000 years longer.

Reasons for the end of imperial states:

They got too big, too overextended, and too expensive to maintain with available resources and there were no fundamental technological breakthrough was prevalent to enlarge these resources. Also, the growth of large landowning families with huge estates enabled them to avoid paying taxes.

Yellow Turban Rebellion in 184 C.E. major peasant revolts in China. The tax burden fell heavily onto the poor.

Rivalry among elite factions created instability which eroded imperial authority.
Epidemic disease ravaged both the Chinese and Roman empires.

The population of the Roman Empire diminished 25 percent in 260-270 B.C.E. which gave the state less tax revenue

Threat of nomadic and semi-agricultural peoples caused internal problems for the imperial states:

1. The Chinese had been dealing with the Xiongnu and other nomadic people to the north. The Great Wall was built to keep them out, offered them trading opportunities, gave them lavish gifts, contracting marriage alliances and had periodic military campaigns. When the Han dynasty weakened, these northerners breached the wall and began to live in the northern area of China. The Roman Empire experiences a similar situation from the Germanic-speaking people living on the northern frontier. This group entered the empire as mercenaries in Roman armies or as refugees from the invasions of Huns who had penetrated Europe through Central Asia. In 476 C.E. they displaced the emperors and established their own ethnic identity—Visigoths, Franks, Angle-Saxons. They incorporated Roman law and Christianity. They produced a new culture from Germanic and Latin elements.

2. In China and post-Roman Europe began the decline of urban life, a contracting population, less area under cultivation, diminishing international trade and vast insecurity for ordinary people.

3. After 350 years of disorder, a Chinese state was established. Sui (589-618 C.E.), Tang (618-907) and Song (960-1279) dynasties. China was now emperor ruled, a bureaucracy selected by examinations governed and the idea of Confucius informed political system. This system continued into the 20th century. There was a great sense of homogeneity which allowed China to have a successful restoration.

Western Europe dissolved into a highly decentralized political system with kings with little authority, nobles, knights and vassals. There were also many city-states in Italy, and other small territories that were ruled by princesses, bishops or the pope. Europe became a civilization without an imperial state.

Chinese agriculture and metallurgy was much more productive and advanced than Europe’s.
India’s Harappa, in the Indus River valley flourished the largest of the First Civilizations. Harappa did not have a central political authority. The demise of this civilization in 1500 B.C.E. was followed in 1,000 years to a civilization along the Ganges River on India’s northern plain. In 600 B.C.E. the civilization began with scattered towns and cities ruled either by regional states or kings. Many varieties of ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity due to the migration of peoples from Central Asia gave Indian civilization a recognizable identity. This civilization had a distinct religious tradition called Hinduism with a social organization—caste.

Northwestern India was briefly ruled by the Persian Empire but then conquered by Alexander the Great and these influences which helped shape India’s political system the Mauryan Empire. With 50 million populations, the Mauryan Empire had a large military force, a civilian bureaucracy with many spies. The state also operated industries such as weaving, mining, shipbuilding, and armaments. The state operated from money collected in taxes on trade, on herds of animals and land.
Ashoka, an emperor 268-232 B.C.E., carved records of his activities and thinking on rocks and pillars. He employed ruthless power toward the expansion of the state but after the battle against the state of Kalinga, Ashoka was repulsed by the destruction, he converted to Buddhism and began practicing a peaceful philosophy of nonviolence. Ashoka stopped his much-loved royal hunts, ended animal sacrifices in the capital and eliminated most meat from the royal menu. Ashoka dug wells, planted shade trees and built rest stops on the empire’s major highways.

After the death of Ashoka, the Mauryan Empire ended and India began a common Indian pattern of competing regional states that were at times unsuccessful and fell. India’s cultural diversity and the constant invasions from Central Asia were other reason for the difficulty of India to establish a new state. Also the caste system encouraged local loyalties.

The absence of consistent imperial unity did not prevent the civilization from flourishing. The cotton textile industry supplied cloth to Afro-Eurasian world, guilds of merchants and artisans provided political leadership in towns and cities, wealth provided lavish temples, public buildings, and religious festivals. Great creativity in religious matters generated Hindu and Buddhist traditions. Indian mathematics and science, astronomers plotted the movements of stars and planets and recognized early that the earth was round.